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Genetically Modified Foods

One major application of genetic engineering techniques is in the realm of food production. With the world population expanding and synthetic pesticides decreasing in effectiveness, novel solutions are increasingly in demand. Genetically modified foods are one such solution. Genetically modified foods can: increase plants' resistance to pesticides and herbicides, thereby decreasing the need for these pollutant chemicals; allow plants to manufacture their own pesticides to ward off insects; increase the yields of many staple crops and thereby ward off starvation in many areas of the world; and allow plants to grow under adverse weather conditions or in poor soil, thereby increasing the amount of arable land on the planet.

However, despite these undeniable benefits, critics argue that genetically engineered crops might transmit their novel genes to wild populations, possibly creating organisms against which humans have no defense. Critics also argue that genetic diversity of plant populations could decrease, thus making crops more susceptible to decimation by as-yet-unknown pathogens. A third argument centers on food consumption, and states that people with food allergies or dietary restrictions might inadvertently eat foods that contain a dangerous compound due to modification.

Gene Therapy

Another application of genetic engineering techniques is in the area of gene therapy, or treatment of genetic diseases through genetic modifications. Proponents argue that gene therapy is the most reasonable and cost-effective way to treat most genetic diseases, because the ideal treatment would only need to be administered once - after that, the modification would be incorporated into the person's genome. Gene therapy techniques promise to end or at least curb a vast amount of human suffering due to painful, debilitating, and sometimes fatal genetic diseases.

Opponents of gene therapy cite the unknown and unpredictable results of inserting genes at random into the genes in a person's cells. They argue that playing with the genome could cause, or at least be a contributing factor, to many types of cancer; they state that curing a person of a genetic disease only to give him terminal cancer is unthinkably inhumane. They also maintain that gene therapy on humans, especially at this stage when we know so little about gene regulation, would amount to unethical experimentation on human subjects.

Germ-Line Therapy

An even more controversial subset of gene therapy is germ-line therapy, or the removal or replacement of faulty genes, not in a person's body cells, but in his gametes. This technique, if applied to everyone born with a certain disease, would eliminate that disease from the population (except for those with spontaneous mutations, which could be treated with ordinary gene therapy). Proponents argue that germ-line therapy would be a great boon to mankind because it would eliminate destructive and costly genetic diseases. They often state that it would be inhuman to allow children to be born with fatal genetic diseases when the capability exists to remove those genes from the population once and for all. They generally see it as an extremely effective way to curb human suffering, as well as a practical measure against the high costs of conventional treatment for generations of people afflicted with a given disease.

Opponents of germ-line gene therapy generally argue that it would be extremely inadvisable at this time, when so little is known about gene regulation or the mechanisms of embryological development; they claim that the premature use of such techniques could have results even worse than the diseases they were trying to cure. Opponents also express concern that not only diseases will be culled from the population, but also relatively insignificant problems like myopia, racial variations like skin color, and even normal variations like height; they generally argue that germ-line therapy is a slippery slope that will plunge humanity into eugenic policies and practices. In addition, opponents claim that reduction of genetic diversity in the human gene pool could increase our collective susceptibility to newly emerging diseases. Some people also cite religious or ethical objections to this particular method of "playing God".

Cloning

Cloning a human or other mammal is a relatively simple process; the following is a summary of the process used to clone Dolly the sheep. Researchers grow some cells from the organism to be cloned, and remove the nucleus from an unfertilized egg cell. They then take one of the cultured cells and implant it in its entirety into the coating around the egg. Then electroshock the egg to cause the two cells to fuse, and implant the new embryo into a surrogate mother. When the baby is born, two genetically identical individuals of different ages and with different birth parents will exist - in short, the original animal will have been cloned.

The ethical status of cloning humans has been a hotly debated issue, touched off by the controversy over Dolly, the first cloned mammal. Proponents of cloning argue that it is no more unnatural than binary fission, the process by which bacteria reproduce to produce identical copies of themselves; they go on to state that cloning is no more unethical than growing a plant from a cutting or giving birth to identical twins, both of which involve two separate and distinct organisms with identical genomes. Since identical twins have the exact same genome, but still grow up with different personalities, clones raised in entirely different time periods and social contexts will be entirely individual despite identical genes. In this view, cloning is just another scientific topic and will become just another reproductive option, and those who wish to research cloning or to be cloned should not be stopped.

There is a small group of people who oppose cloning - or at least propose a moratorium on it for the time being - for practical, not moral or ethical, reasons. These people argue that cloning is ethically acceptable, but practically unsound because of the resultant decrease in the genetic diversity of the human gene pool. They also advise more extensive experiments on the effects of cloning on animals before human beings are cloned.

Finally, a large majority of people argue that cloning humans is both unnatural and unethical. They cite fears that include: people's individuality being impaired or ruined due to cloning technologies; aggressor nations creating armies of cloned soldiers to assault other nations; overpopulation due to sudden ease of reproduction; depletion of the human gene pool; and a number of concerns about the moral status of clones. Some go so far as to postulate a stratified society divided into the cloned and the uncloned, and fears about eugenics or of reserving cloning technology to the "genetically desirable" generally surface. Many religions also object to cloning, again by claiming that it is "playing God".

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Links and References: Looking Further

The following resources will be of use in the study of the controversies over genetically modified foods, gene therapy, germ-line therapy, and human cloning.

• General Information
  • Books
    • Genethics: The Clash between the New Genetics and Human Values by David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson
  • Websites
    • Bioethics.net
• Genetically Modified Foods
  • Websites
    • Friends of the Earth's Real Food Campaign
    • Genetic Food Alert
    • Monsanto - food biotechnology company
    • New Scientist: Genetically Modified World
    • Where do the Real Dangers of Genetic Engineering Lie? by Richard Dawkins
• Gene Therapy/Germ-Line Therapy
  • Websites
    • Gene Therapy Links
    • Institute for Human Gene Therapy
    • Introduction to Gene Therapy
    • Bioethics Issues: Gene Therapy
    • Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights
• Cloning
  • Books
  • • Clones and Clones: Facts and Fantasies about Human Cloning edited by Martha Nussbaum and Cass R. Sunstein
    • Who's Afraid of Human Cloning? by Gregory Pence
    • The Ethics of Human Cloning by Leon Kass and James Wilson
    • The Human Cloning Debate edited by Glenn McGee
  • Websites
  • • Human Cloning and Genetic Engineering by Arthur Kerschen
    • Cloning Debate
    • Thoughts on Cloning Humans by Richard Dawkins
    • Dolly and the Cloth-Heads by Richard Dawkins
    • Introduction to Cloning
    • Cloning

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